Practices of Multidisciplinary Coordination to Support People with Terminal Cancer Living in Care Facilities and their Families:

A Literature Review

Abstract

Objective: Many care workers feel anxious and confused regarding how to offer care to patients in the terminal cancer stage, especially as their number in care facilities is increasing. Therefore, the coordination between medical care and nursing needs to be improved. This study aimed to clarify the objectives and practices of multidisciplinary coordination in supporting people with terminal cancer living in care facilities and their families. Methods: Ichushi-Web was used to select manuscripts describing multidisciplinary coordination. The thirteen thus selected manuscripts were qualitatively and inductively analyzed. Results: Four strategies were derived from twenty-nine coordination situations: establishing a support system for end-of-life care, forming a treatment plan, unifying the care offered, and assuring assessment/care. Conclusion: Multidisciplinary coordination was conducted with the aims of eliminating care worker and nurse anxiety, forming treatment plans, and creating a foundation for coordinating medical care by sharing medical knowledge. However, according to care workers, whether the wishes of the patients were being considered in such coordination was unclear. In the future, the assessments provided by facility care workers need to be clarified, and ways to provide support to promote coordination among medical staff needs to be investigated.